Benjamin Brink/The OregonianThe Portland City Council hears from an activist attired in plastic bags during testimony about a citywide ban on plastic checkout bags.

I received a call one evening this week from a polling firm asking me a series of questions about plastic-bag politics in Oregon. I was asked what I thought about recycling in general and what kind of bags I like to use when I shop.

And then I was asked if I would support a statewide ballot measure to require recyclers to recycle plastic bags in Oregon.

"We're just trying to get an idea of where the public is on the issue," said Joe Gilliam, the group's president and a longtime Salem lobbyist. Gilliam's group has been on the losing edge of plastic bag politics lately.

Last year, the grocers teamed with environmentalists to get behind an unsucessful bill that would ban plastic checkout bags while levying a five-cent fee on paper bags. The idea was to head off local bans and have one statewide standard.

It's the kind of issue that attracts a lot of publicity since just about everybody shops and has an opinion on paper vs. plastic vs. reusable bags. The bill never made it out of the Senate and the Portland City Council then promptly proceeded to slap its own ban on plastic bags that begins on Oct. 15.

Gilliam said it's a decision that will be costly to the large grocery chains, and they fear they will face logistical problems dealing with a patchwork of local regulation.

So are they fixing to run their own statewide initiative?

"I'm not going to rule anything out," said Gilliam, adding that an initiative is an expensive and risky proposition. Still, he said he wants to see what the poll says. And he said he does think voters like the idea of being able to recycle plastic bags.

That brings its own policy problems. Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, who sponsored the unsuccessful legislation last year, said the ability to recycle plastic bags is problematic. As it happens, PolitiFact Oregon took up this question several months ago and found a (pardon the pun) mixed bag of answers.

Gilliam said other groups helped pay for the survey, but he declined to say who they are. For the record, I answered a lot of questions by saying "I don't know" or "undecided" or "I'll have to think about it." The grocers may want to recycle my responses.